


Inevitable

by taradiane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Missing Persons, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-03
Updated: 2003-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1382821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taradiane/pseuds/taradiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny got exactly what she wanted when she married Harry...didn't she?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Written April 2003. Credit goes to the following: Frankie, for the quick grammar check...Lea for listening to me rant about backstory for hours...Zarina for approving of my Ginny...and Jane for being the first to read it. I adore you all!

"No, you go back to what you were doing. I'll clean up here."

He gets up and gives me a quick kiss on my neck before heading back to his study. He says that he's finishing up paperwork. I know he's looking at _that_ file. That damned file. His occupation as an Auror has given him access to files on anything that he wants, and I know he's spent the past four years collecting information on _him_ , even though he’s never been assigned to anything having to do with that dormant case.

There's something so calming about domesticity. I could just charm the supper dishes to clean themselves, but I prefer to do the job myself. I actually enjoy keeping house. It allows me to keep my hands busy while I wait for him to finish. It's a regular schedule for him. A few days a week, usually on Tuesdays (and today is Tuesday) and weekends, he goes in there - his own personal sanctuary - and reads through that file. He must have read through it a thousand times by now. Maybe he thinks that Draco is going to crawl out of the pages. He'll spend an hour or two going over the same information, over and over again. Sometimes he hears a new rumour and he'll write it down on the last page, his script both meticulous and desperate. The past month, however, his sessions with the file have been more frequent. There have been more rumours about Draco's whereabouts that actually seem plausible this time. Legitimate. I let him have his time with it. 

I’m not jealous.

He thinks I don't know about it, or how much time he spends with it. I first came across the file about two years ago while I was dusting. I had knocked his quill onto the floor, and when I bent down to pick it up, I saw it under his desk. It was lying in the small gap between the oak cabinet and the floor, the frayed and yellowed edge sticking out from underneath the drawer. I pulled the folder out, intending to put it with the rest of his files and thinking he'd just kicked it under there accidentally. The name, written in red ink across the top corner, thick and dark, caught my eye. _Malfoy_. I didn't have to open the file to know which Malfoy it was for - I knew. I opened it anyway. Twenty-three years of Draco Malfoy's life was in that file. Pictures, medical records, stories from classmates, and even some of his exam papers from our Hogwarts days. Anything and everything that Harry thought might be useful in locating the other man.

Draco had disappeared during our final year at school. He had left for the Christmas holidays as usual, and simply never came back. There was a lot of talk the first month that he was gone, mostly involving Draco having finally received the Dark Mark and taking his place at Voldemort's right hand where his father had once stood. Harry had seemed indifferent about it all. Too indifferent. He'd really thought that Draco would come back. I know that he still thinks that way, and because of that, I'm sad for him. 

I'm sad for him every time I'm awakened by his dreams; the sound of him calling out for Draco - sometimes in fear, sometimes in lust, but mostly in longing. The one time he whispered Draco's name on an exhale while we were making love shook me to the core, but I never mentioned it. I'm not even sure he's aware that he'd said it. If he had been, he was far too ashamed to mention it afterward. Probably hoping that I hadn't heard him. But I did. Yet what right would I have had to chastise him for it? Or be angry about it? I knew this when I married him. I knew that Draco was the one he really wanted, but was never quite brave enough to grab onto, and then the chance had been lost forever the day that Draco left and never came back.

Don't get me wrong, Harry is a wonderful husband. We've been married for three years, and he's never been anything but faithful and loving towards me. He does all of the things that a husband should do. He opens doors for me. He kisses me goodbye in the mornings and hello in the evenings. He listens to me talk about my volunteer work at St. Mungo's, even though he's the one that put some of those people in there. He's everything that my father showed me a husband should be...except for that one small detail. His heart belongs to another. It always has, and I knew that going in. I know he loves me, but I know it's a different kind of love. It's not the kind of love that I have for him. My love for him is…well, words can't even begin to express. It knows no bounds. It's overwhelming. Sometimes I still can't believe he's mine. Well, as 'mine' as he can be while sharing him with an absent Draco Malfoy.

Here he comes. In for his tea. Right on schedule. Has it been half an hour already? He grins at me, nodding his thanks for the cuppa, and I grin back. And there he goes, back into the study with Draco. I remind him as he walks through the doorway that we're having dinner with Ron and Hermione this coming weekend. He mumbles something, I don't know what. He shuts the door behind him once more. I should bake something for dessert. A nice cake perhaps. Harry likes chocolate cake.

Sometimes I wonder how I got into this marriage-of-three. We started dating just a few weeks before leaving Hogwarts, though I was always more in the relationship than he was. It was a bad time for him, and I suppose I should have waited before pushing him into it. Voldemort had been killed the previous April, and then Dumbledore died shortly thereafter. I had found him out at Hagrid's old hut, which the new gamekeeper had never taken residence in out of respect for the beloved giant's memory, and Harry was just sitting on the front steps by the door. I could tell that he had been crying, his eyes rimmed red and face flushed, and the urge to comfort him had been overwhelming. So I sat next to him and took his hand, and he'd let me. And I took that as permission, when maybe it had just been his way of placating me. Or perhaps he'd been too tired and worn down to refuse me. I leaned in to kiss him, just a friendly comforting kiss, and he'd turned away slightly. I turned with him and captured his mouth anyway. He'd done nothing at first, then gradually leaned into it. Looking back, I can see how cruel I was for having forced that on him at a time like that. Even as he'd leaned into it, I knew he hadn't wanted it, but my own need to have him was too much to contain. I knew even then that he wasn't thinking of me. I was just there. A warm body.

I've always been the leader in our relationship. Every direction it's taken has been steered by me. I was even the one who had proposed marriage. It hadn't been anything elaborate. We'd been sitting on the couch at his old flat in London, and I'd simply said _"We should get married,"_ and after a few moments of silence he'd replied, _"Okay."_ And so we got married. Ron was his best man, Hermione was my maid of honor, and my parents had finally got their wish for One Big Happy Weasley Family. Everything was exactly how everyone always thought it would be…Ron and Hermione, me and Harry. The expectations had finally been fulfilled. 

Hermione had taken me aside just before her ascent down the aisle and asked me if this was what I really wanted. Something in her eyes told me that she knew. That she'd always known. Hermione knew that I would never have all of him. There would always be part of him devoted to another, to the ghost of Draco Malfoy. I didn't care. I would take whatever I could get. He was my Harry. My destiny. Even if that meant that all I would ever get were scraps. I would gladly get on my hands and knees to scrape them off the floor if it meant that Harry and I could be together. It was enough.

And so we got married, and bought this house here in Ottery St. Catchpole, just a few miles away from The Burrow where my parents now live alone. I talk about wanting children, but he says that he's not ready. Wants more years as an Auror without worrying about kids at home. I know deep down that it's because he doesn't want that permanent tie to me, though he'd never admit that to me or even to himself. But I also know that if _that day_ were to ever come, if Draco ever reappears, I would have to be the one to make him leave. He would never willingly hurt me. It isn't his way. He would feel the obligation to stay, to keep his vow, and so I would have to be the one to end it. Until then, I will take what I can get from him. And sometimes it's enough. A little less, day by day, but still enough. For now.

It's enough when we're lying in bed together, limbs entwined. It's enough when he's inside me. Even with the ghost of Draco Malfoy peering over the bed as I cry out my husband's name, it's enough. Even though he never opens his eyes, never looks at me when we're making love, it's enough. Even though I'm usually the one to initiate things, it's enough. On the rare occasions where he has been the one to lead us to the bedroom, he is different…rougher, more uninhibited. But I don't mind. I let him do whatever he wants to do to me; let my body be wholly owned by him in some hope that one day he'll really want me the way I know he wants Draco. But I know that's a futile hope. I know because there's still one thing that he will never let me do for him. 

Of course, I know the reason behind his abstinence from that particular pleasure. I know it's an act only reserved for him. For Draco. I know because I've seen it with my own two eyes. It was that week before Christmas holidays in 7th year, the week before Draco had disappeared. Hermione had lost Crookshanks and I had offered to help her look for him before curfew was up, thinking he probably got trapped in one of those rooms that changed locations throughout the castle. I had been walking down the Charms corridor when I saw one of the tapestries on the wall sway slightly, as if moved by a breeze. I'd walked over to the tapestry and lifted it from the wall to find a door behind it instead of the cantankerous cat that I'd expected. I'd heard faint rustling sounds coming from inside, and opened the door, expecting to find either Crookshanks or Mrs. Norris, but instead saw something else entirely. It was him. And Draco. Harry had been leaning up against the windowsill at the far side of the room, and Draco was in front of him, on his knees, hands gripping his hips so tightly that Draco's knuckles were white. I can still remember the way the moonlight made Draco's hair shine silver. Harry had been looking down at Draco; his cheeks flushed and mouth slightly gaping in a silent moan, his lips a deep crimson. Green eyes full of such naked want and need - a need I've never seen when he looks at me. And his fingers had been clutching at Draco's hair; green eyes locked with grey as Draco’s mouth devoured him whole.

I'd felt something inside me shatter in that moment, and I'd turned and fled down the hallway back to Gryffindor Tower, back to my dorm room. I have never cried as hard as I did that night. Those few seconds that I had witnessed had broken me into a million pieces, and I wasn't able to put myself back together again until Draco disappeared. But that was when Harry broke, and the problem was that he never healed. He's still broken.

A storm has come. The thunder startles me, and I splatter cake mix on my apron as I pour it into the pan. I didn’t even know it was raining. Harry has been in his sanctuary longer than usual. Maybe I should let him stay in there all night. Maybe I shouldn’t wake him when he falls asleep in that chair, and instead enjoy one night without Draco Malfoy in my bed. But I know that I’ll wake him, and I know that he’ll scramble to close the file before he thinks I can see its contents. 

And then we’ll go upstairs to bed, and maybe he’ll let me wrap my hand around him and ease him into ecstasy before I ease him into sleep.

~*~

Dinner with Ron and Hermione was going well. I'm able to play hostess to my two favourite people in the world, and a simple thing like that can leave me happy for days. Harry and Ron talk about Quidditch and work and more Quidditch, while Hermione and I sit in the kitchen and talk about all the things women talk about when their husbands are out of earshot. Hermione is almost seven months pregnant, and she lets me feel the baby kick. As I sit here with my hand on her stomach, I know that if I ever have the chance to feel the same within my own body that it won’t be Harry's. 

Hermione tells me about the latest rumour involving Draco having been seen just this past Wednesday at the ruins that were once Malfoy Manor. I pretend that I haven't already read that tidbit in Harry’s file. She gives me a consolatory look as I shrug the news off as ‘no big deal’, but she keeps her thoughts to herself. Not that it matters. Her thoughts are the same as mine, and she may as well shout it from the rooftops with the way it’s echoing in my head. What if he’s really back? It's my greatest fear, and yet it would almost be a relief to just have done with it already. Maybe Draco won’t even want what is now mine (as ‘mine’ as he can be). Maybe Harry never meant to Draco what Draco meant - _means_ \- to Harry. Maybe this is all a moot point because Draco’s really long dead, and rumours are just rumours. 

Some days, I pray for the discovery of a body. Flesh rotted from bone. I know that it would destroy him, but I would be here to pick him up off the floor. He would never be the same, but he would still be mine. I would still be Ginny Potter. I know that it's wrong - wishing someone dead. And yet. _And yet_.

Ron and Hermione say their good-byes, and I retreat to the gazebo in the side garden to read as my husband loses himself in that file. Every night since Wednesday's new rumour, he has shut himself in that room after supper and not come out until bedtime. He tries to make up for it with tender kisses and pillow talk, and I let him think it’s all right. That I think it comes with the job - all part and parcel of being married to an Auror. Tonight will probably be no different.

Or maybe tonight is the night my life changes forever.

I can see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look over my shoulder to the gate at the front of our garden, and a cloaked figure stands there. Silent and still. A warm summer breeze blows and I can see blond hair spill out from beneath the hood. 

He has finally come. Come for my Harry. And there’s nothing that I can do. Ice runs along my spine and down through the soles of my feet. Is this what relief feels like? It feels more like death. 

I stand up and begin to walk over to the gate, barely feeling the ground beneath my feet, leaving my book on the gazebo bench. I don’t bother marking its place because I know I’ll never want to see that book again. It will be forever tainted by this night, this moment. Draco finally looks in my direction as I close the distance between us. He looks thinner than I remember. I’m tempted to ask him where he’s been, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing been the day that he'd disappeared and today matters. Not anymore. It's already a distant memory compared to what's about to come. We look at each other for a long moment, his eyes filled with a thousand different emotions: fear, happiness, longing, hope, desperation, joy. I feel my own eyes fill with tears, unexpected and unwelcome. Yet my heart feels nothing. The numbness is extraordinary. I don't feel broken. Just empty. So empty. 

_“He’s inside,”_ is all I can say. I wonder if Draco can hear me, because I can barely hear myself. Why won’t he stop looking at me? Is he waiting for my permission? My blessing? Does he know what this moment means for me? I open the gate for him, which is the only gesture he needs. He steps inside, and I find myself walking next to him up to the front door. I almost want to laugh at myself as I lead Draco to the one thing I ever truly wanted so that he can claim it as his own. Even though Harry was always rightfully Draco’s anyway. He isn't the thief in this story. I am. 

I reach for the doorknob, and Draco finally speaks to me.

_“Does he-“_

_“Yes. He’s still yours,”_ I interrupt him. I don’t know if that was his question, but the words spill out regardless. He only nods, and bites the corner of his lower lip. I don't understand this display of...insecurity? Doubt? How could he possibly doubt Harry's reaction to his reappearance? 

I lead him through the doorway, and into the kitchen towards the adjoining study door. The sanctuary. Draco is behind me as I peer around the corner and see Harry sitting at his desk, his back to me. I can hear the scratch of the quill as he writes, possibly another entry on the back page of a rumour that’s about to become insignificant. My throat closes. I don't feel numb anymore. The pain has come, and it's breathtaking as I stare at the back of Harry's neck and the curve of his jaw. My lips will never touch that skin again. 

_“Harry,”_ I hear Draco whisper, no longer standing behind me. 

Through the blur of tears, I see Harry’s quill stop, see his head slowly start to rise. I can see his reflection in the glass from the window in front of him, but both Draco’s and mine aren’t there. Maybe this is all just a dream - a nightmare - and I'm really still in the gazebo, fast asleep with my forgotten book laying across my lap. 

I can see every muscle in his shoulders and back tense through the soft cotton of Harry's shirt. Every muscle that I no longer have a right to touch or soothe.

Harry turns in his chair, and I see the absolute shock and pure relief flooding his features, his very being. There’s a fire in his eyes that takes me back to that abandoned classroom, to the night I shattered, and I can feel the cracks repaired from a stolen kiss five years ago on a gamekeeper's stoop begin to rip apart. Draco moves slowly past me, his cloak caressing against my bare leg as he walks towards Harry. _His Harry_. The same Harry that was mine just moments ago, yet now doesn’t even see me standing here. Green eyes are locked with grey. Draco looks almost afraid, nervous, like a boy about to be scolded. 

_“Harry,”_ Draco says once more, his hand extended, and Harry stands on unsteady legs to walk around his desk. I stare, feeling invisible, cracks ripping further and deeper than ever as Harry falls to his knees before Draco and wraps his arms around his waist, his head buried against Draco’s stomach. His hands are balled into fists in the small of Draco’s back as he clenches desperately at the fabric. His shoulders shake with silent sobs, and Draco raises his hand to Harry’s head, smoothing his hair and trying to calm the man now weeping openly against him. Harry just says his name, over and over again, as though he hasn't said it in all these years. Draco drops to his knees and embraces him, letting Harry run his fingers in disbelief over his face and hair and neck.

Harry doesn't look at me. Doesn't see me even though I'm within arms length.

 _“Harry,”_ he says again, so quietly that I can barely hear it. I can see Harry suck in his bottom lip like he always does when he frowns. He's confused. Unsure. Hoping this isn't a dream and never wanting to wake, while I'm hoping it is. Draco leans his forehead against Harry’s, raises his hand to Harry’s face and caresses Harry’s cheek with his thumb.

I can't watch any more. Every utterance of Harry's name from Draco's mouth is like a knife piercing my skin. 

I shut the door as I turn to go. Tonight, I will pack my things and go back to The Burrow. 

Tomorrow…tomorrow I will tell Harry he is free.


End file.
